Adam drove to Oxford and spent an hour with Professor Beachley. The previous day, the professor had met with the former student. She was now more adamant than ever that Adam was the answer to this young woman’s crisis. Their discussion left Adam scarcely able to see the street back out to the corporate headquarters. His preoccupation carried him into the offices from which he had just been fired. A very curious receptionist told him to go straight to the chairman’s office. Adam walked the long hall that carried him past the library and conference rooms and felt scrutiny from every quarter.
Mrs. Drummond was her normal unflappable self. “Mr. Austin will be with you directly.” The chairman’s secretary indicated Kayla’s space. “Miss Austin asked me to give you her best, sir. She’s off doing Christmas errands and said you might like to share her desk.”
Adam glanced at the spot where he had first seen Kayla. “All right.”
“If you’ll excuse me for saying, sir, this is the first time Miss Austin has ever invited anyone into her alcove. You’d be well advised to find a proper means of saying thanks.” Mrs. Drummond returned to her work. “Flowers might make for a nice start.”
Adam seated himself and pulled out his two sets of notes, one from the previous evening’s work and the others from his astonishing conversation with Dr. Beachley. Kayla’s fragrance still lingered, a heady mixture of spices and distant lands. The desk was delicate and feminine, the edges carved into gentle waves. Adam then noticed the paper pinned to the board above the desk and it’s single handwritten word, Hope. He sensed Kayla only left it because it was meant for them both.
“Mr. Wright? Mr. Austin will see you now.”
Joshua Dobbins was seriously displeased to see Adam enter the chairman’s office. “Really, Peter, this is most unwise.”
“Your objections are duly noted.” Peter waved Adam into a seat and declared hoarsely, “The colleges have elected to give us another six months to demonstrate a viable plan for recouping the lost earnings.”
Adam felt a definable lightening of his body. As though he could suddenly cast aside the mental stones that had weighed down his hours. “That’s an eternity.”
“Not quite. But close enough from where I sit.”
Joshua Dobbins protested, “This man has been dismissed.”
“And I have hired him on my personal payroll. To work on a specific project.”
“The board backed my decision!”
Peter Austin coughed, took a raspy breath, and said, “Old friend, we are poised on a knife’s edge. I ask you to trust me. As you have so often in the past.”
When Joshua subsided, Peter went on, “ MVP has requested a meeting to discuss the acquisition of our firm.”
“They must have heard about the colleges’ decision to grant us more time,” Adam said.
Joshua fumed, “Grant us?”
Peter glanced at his number two, then said, “I feel we should take the meeting. It may well buy us some breathing room.”
Adam agreed, “They’ll hold off trying to destroy you as long as they think there’s a chance of buying the firm.” He had a sud-den thought. “Why not insist they ease the pressure being put on the Italian company that’s brought you to the brink?”
Joshua said, “They’ll deny all knowledge.”
“It doesn’t matter what they say. You heard Peter. We’re after breathing room.” Adam turned to the chairman. “Send Joshua. Put some space between you and the negotiations.”
Peter cut off Joshua’s protest before it could fully form. “Old friend, I have relied on you so often. It seems we are in need of your well-honed skills once again. Do not, I beg you, let us down.”
When Joshua had departed, Peter said, “Joshua is not the spy.”
“I know that.”
“If there is one at all.”
“I think he’s correct. About MVP having a spy, and MVP being behind this crisis of ours.”
“Joshua has been with me since the beginning. He is irascible, confrontational, often able to see only the potential risk. But I trust him implicitly.”
Adam nodded, not so much in agreement as respect for this man and his ironclad principles. “I may have something. It could be nothing. But I think it’s big.”
Peter studied him across the expanse of his desk. “On what grounds?”
Adam extracted his second set of notes. “I have just had the most amazing meeting with Professor Beachley.”
Adam drove them from the offices into the center of town. The sky brooded low over the city. The college’s stone edifices frowned back at the sky and the passersby, gray and sullen. The streets were packed, particularly as they passed the Christmas markets. The front door of the last home on Norham Gardens Road opened before Adam cut the motor. The professor’s smile of greeting defied the otherwise gloomy afternoon. “The past never seems more alive than in the faces of old friends.”
Peter Austin bussed both cheeks. “You are very kind to a man who has ignored you for so long.”
“Stuff and nonsense. Do come in and sit down.” She thumped her way back into the front parlor. “I was just going to ring Mrs. Brandt for tea. Will you join me?”
“We don’t want to be a bother.”
“None of that. Adam, would you be so kind?”
When he returned, she directed him into a neighboring chair, then said to Peter, “Your young associate has impressed me to no end.”
“You should have seen yesterday’s performance.”
“I am certain he did you proud.”
When tea was served, Peter went on, “I really must apologize once more for not staying in touch, Sylvia.”
“Oh, do be a good boy and let it be. You had lost your cherished wife. Anyone in their right mind would have known you were devastated by the loss. You did not need reminders like me hanging about. You needed to get on with life and be a father to your daughter.” She erased the subject with a delicate gesture. “I must say, it was good to see your daughter looking so well. Kayla has a great deal of Amanda in her.”
“That she does.”
“Which, of course, makes her absence all the more difficult for you.”
“Indeed, yes.”
They took a distinctly English pause, an unspoken agreement between two old friends to set one topic aside and move on to another. Peter set his cup down on the table between them and said, “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to repeat for me what you told Adam this morning.”